Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

When there’s strife and when there’s trouble
 
Call on Peevsie, he’ll make double!
The Fat Lady was snoozing and not pleased to be woken, but swung forward grumpily to allow 
them to clamber into the mercifully peaceful and empty common room. It did not seem that 
people knew about Ron yet; Harry was very relieved: He had been interrogated enough that day. 
Hermione bade him good night and set off for the girls’ dormitory. Harry, however, remained 
behind, taking a seat beside the fire and looking down into the dying embers.
So Dumbledore had argued with Snape. In spite of all he had told Harry, in spite of his insistence 
that he trusted Snape completely, he had lost his temper with him… He did not think that Snape 
had tried hard enough to investigate the Slytherins… or, perhaps, to investigate a single 
Slytherin: Malfoy? 
Was it because Dumbledore did not want Harry to do anything foolish, to take matters into his 
own hands, that he had pretended there was nothing in Harry’s suspicions? That seemed likely. It 
might even be that Dumbledore did not want anything to distract Harry from their lessons, or 
from procuring that memory from Slughorn. Perhaps Dumbledore did not think it right to 
confide suspicions about his staff to sixteen-year-olds…
“There you are, Potter!”
Harry jumped to his feet in shock, his wand at the ready. He had been quite convinced that the 
common room was empty; he had not been at all prepared for a hulking figure to rise suddenly 
out of a distant chair. A closer look showed him that it was Cormac McLaggen.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come back,” said McLaggen, disregarding Harry’s drawn wand. 
“Must’ve fallen asleep. Look, I saw them taking Weasley up to the hospital wing earlier. Didn’t 
look like he’ll be fit for next week’s match.”
It took Harry a few moments to realize what McLaggen was talking about.

---

“Oh… right… Quidditch,” he said, putting his wand back into the belt of his jeans and running a 
hand wearily through his hair. “Yeah… he might not make it.”
“Well, then, I’ll be playing Keeper, won’t I?” said McLaggen. 
“Yeah,” said Harry. “Yeah, I suppose so…”
He could not think of an argument against it; after all, McLaggen had certainly performed 
second-best in the trials.
“Excellent,” said McLaggen in a satisfied voice. “So when’s practice?”
“What? Oh… there’s one tomorrow evening.”
“Good. Listen, Potter, we should have a talk beforehand. I’ve got some ideas on strategy you 
might find useful.”
“Right,” said Harry unenthusiastically. “Well, I’ll hear them tomorrow, then. I’m pretty tired 
now… see you…”
The news that Ron had been poisoned spread quickly next day, but it did not cause the sensation 
that Katie’s attack had done. People seemed to think that it might have been an accident, given 
that he had been in the Potions master’s room at the time, and that as he had been given an 
antidote immediately there was no real harm done. In fact, the Gryffindors were generally much 
more interested in the upcoming Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, for many of them wanted 
to see Zacharias Smith, who played Chaser on the Hufflepuff team, punished soundly for his 
commentary during the opening match against Slytherin. 
Harry, however, had never been less interested in Quidditch; he was rapidly becoming obsessed 
with Draco Malfoy. Still checking the Marauder’s Map whenever he got a chance, he sometimes 
made detours to wherever Malfoy happened to be, but had not yet detected him doing anything 
out of the ordinary. And still there were those inexplicable times when Malfoy simply vanished 
from the map…
But Harry did not get a lot of time to consider the problem, what with Quidditch practice, 
homework, and the fact that he was now being dogged wherever he went by Cormac McLaggen 
and Lavender Brown.
He could not decide which of them was more annoying. McLaggen kept up a constant stream of 
hints that he would make a better permanent Keeper for the team than Ron, and that now that 
Harry was seeing him play regularly he would surely come around to this way of thinking too; he 
was also keen to criticize the other players and provide Harry with detailed training schemes, so 
that more than once Harry was forced to remind him who was Captain.
Meanwhile, Lavender kept sidling up to Harry to discuss Ron, which Harry found almost more 
wearing than McLaggen’s Quidditch lectures. At first, Lavender had been very annoyed that 

---

nobody had thought to tell her that Ron was in the hospital wing — “I mean, I am his 
girlfriend!”— but unfortunately she had now decided to forgive Harry this lapse of memory and 
was keen to have lots of in-depth chats with him about Ron’s feelings, a most uncomfortable 
experience that Harry would have happily forgone. 
“Look, why don’t you talk to Ron about all this?” Harry asked, after a particularly long 
interrogation from Lavender that took in everything from precisely what Ron had said about her 
new drew robes to whether or not Harry thought that Ron considered his relationship with 
Lavender to be “serious.”
“Well, I would, but he’s always asleep when I go and see him!” said Lavender fretfully.
“Is he?” said Harry, surprised, for he had found Ron perfectly alert every time he had been up to 
the hospital wing, both highly interested in the news of Dumbledore and Snape’s row and keen
abuse McLaggen as much as possible.
“Is Hermione Granger still visiting him?” Lavender demanded suddenly.
“Yeah, I think so. Well, they’re friends, aren’t they?” said Harry uncomfortably.
“Friends, don’t make me laugh,” said Lavender scornfully. “She didn’t talk to him for weeks 
after he started going out with me! But I suppose she wants to make up with him now he’s all 
interesting…”
“Would you call getting poisoned being interesting?” asked Harry. “Anyway — sorry, got to go 
— there’s McLaggen coming for a talk about Quidditch,” said Harry hurriedly, and he dashed 
sideways through a door pretending to be solid wall and sprinted down the shortcut that would 
take him off to Potions where, thankfully, neither Lavender nor McLaggen could follow him.
On the morning of the Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, Harry dropped in on the hospital 
wing before heading down to the pitch. Ron was very agitated; Madam Pomfrey would not let 
him go down to watch the match, feeling it would overexcite him.
“So how’s McLaggen shaping up?” he asked Harry nervously, apparently forgetting that he had 
already asked the same question twice.
“I’ve told you,” said Harry patiently, “he could be world-class and I wouldn’t want to keep him. 
He keeps trying to tell everyone what to do, he thinks he could play every position better than the 
rest of us. I can’t wait to be shot of him. And speaking of getting shot of people,” Harry added, 
getting to his feet and picking up his Firebolt, “will you stop pretending to be asleep when 
Lavender comes to see you? She’s driving me mad as well.”
“Oh,” said Ron, looking sheepish. “Yeah. All right.”
“If you don’t want to go out with her anymore, just tell her,” said Harry.

---

“Yeah… well… it’s not that easy, is it?” said Ron. He paused. “Hermione going to look in 
before the match?” he added casually.
“No, she’s already gone down to the pitch with Ginny.” 
“Oh,” said Ron, looking rather glum. “Right. Well, good luck. Hope you hammer McLag — I 
mean, Smith.”
“I’ll try,” said Harry, shouldering his broom. “See you after the match.”
He hurried down through the deserted corridors; the whole school was outside, either already 
seated in the stadium or heading down toward it. He was looking out of the windows he passed, 
trying to gauge how much wind they were facing, when a noise ahead made him glance up and 
he saw Malfoy walking toward him, accompanied by two girls, both of whom looked sulky and 
resentful.
Malfoy stopped short at the sight of Harry, then gave a short, humorless laugh and continued 
walking.
“Where’re you going?” Harry demanded.
“Yeah, I’m really going to tell you, because it’s your business, Potter,” sneered Malfoy. “You’d 
better hurry up, they’ll be waiting for ‘the Chosen Captain’ — ‘the Boy Who Scored’ — 
whatever they call you these days.”
One of the girls gave an unwilling giggle. Harry stared at her. She blushed. Malfoy pushed past 
Harry and she and her friend followed at a trot, turning the corner and vanishing from view.
Harry stood rooted on the spot and watched them disappear. This was infuriating; he was already 
cutting it fine to get to the match on time and yet there was Malfoy, skulking off while the rest of 
the school was absent: Harry’s best chance yet of discovering what Malfoy was up to. The silent 
seconds trickled past, and Harry remained where he was, frozen, gazing at the place where 
Malfoy had vanished…
“Where have you been?” demanded Ginny, as Harry sprinted into the changing rooms. The 
whole team was changed and ready; Coote and Peakes, the Beaters, were both hitting their clubs 
nervously against their legs.
“I met Malfoy,” Harry told her quietly, as he pulled his scarlet robes over his head. “So I wanted 
to know how come he’s up at the castle with a couple of girlfriends while everyone else is down 
here…”
“Does it matter right now?”
“Well, I’m not likely to find out, am I?” said Harry, seizing his Firebolt and pushing his glasses 
straight. “Come on then!”

---

And without another word, he marched out onto the pitch to deafening cheers and boos.
There was little wind; the clouds were patchy; every now and then there were dazzling flashes of 
bright sunlight. 
“Tricky conditions!” McLaggen said bracingly to the team. “Coote, Peakes, you’ll want to fly 
out of the sun, so they don’t see you coming —”
“I’m the Captain, McLaggen, shut up giving them instructions,” said Harry angrily. “Just get up 
by the goal posts!”
Once McLaggen had marched off, Harry turned to Coote and Peakes.
“Make sure you do fly out of the sun,” he told them grudgingly.
He shook hands with the Hufflepuff Captain, and then, on Madam Hooch’s whistle, kicked off 
and rose into the air, higher than the rest of his team, streaking around the pitch in search of the 
Snitch. If he could catch it good and early, there might be a chance he could get back up to the 
castle, seize the Marauder’s Map, and find out what Malfoy was doing…
“And that’s Smith of Hufflepuff with the Quaffle,” said a dreamy voice, echoing over the 
grounds. “He did the commentary last time, of course, and Ginny Weasley flew into him, I think 
probably on purpose, it looked like it. Smith was being quite rude about Gryffindor, I expect he 
regrets that now he’s playing them — oh, look, he’s lost the Quaffle, Ginny took it from him, I 
do like her, she’s very nice…”
Harry stared down at the commentator’s podium. Surely nobody in their right mind would have 
let Luna Lovegood commentate? But even from above there was no mistaking that long, dirty-
blonde hair, nor the necklace of butterbeer corks… Beside Luna, Professor McGonagall was 
looking slightly uncomfortable, as though she was indeed having second thoughts about this 
appointment.
“… but now that big Hufflepuff player’s got the Quaffle from her, I can’t remember his name, 
it’s something like Bibble — no, Buggins —”
“It’s Cadwallader!” said Professor McGonagall loudly from beside Luna. The crowd laughed.
Harry stared around for the Snitch; there was no sign of it. Moments later, Cadwallader scored. 
McLaggen had been shouting criticism at Ginny for allowing the Quaffle out of her possession, 
with the result that he had not noticed the large red ball soaring past his right ear.
“McLaggen, will you pay attention to what you’re supposed to be doing and leave everyone else 
alone!” bellowed Harry, wheeling around to face his Keeper.
“You’re not setting a great example!” McLaggen shouted back, red-faced and furious.

---

“And Harry Potter’s now having an argument with his Keeper,” said Luna serenely, while both 
Hufflepuffs and Slytherins below in the crowd cheered and jeered. “I don’t think that’ll help him 
find the Snitch, but maybe it’s a clever ruse…” 
Swearing angrily, Harry spun round and set off around the pitch again, scanning the skies for 
some sign of the tiny, winged golden ball.
Ginny and Demelza scored a goal apiece, giving the red-and-gold-clad supporters below 
something to cheer about. Then Cadwallader scored again, making things level, but Luna did not 
seem to have noticed; she appeared singularly uninterested in such mundane things as the score, 
and kept attempting to draw the crowd’s attention to such things as interestingly shaped clouds 
and the possibility that Zacharias Smith, who had so far failed to maintain possession of the 
Quaffle for longer than a minute, was suffering from something called “Loser’s Lurgy.”
“Seventy-forty to Hufflepuff!” barked Professor McGonagall into Luna’s megaphone.
“Is it, already?” said Luna vaguely. “Oh, look! The Gryffindor Keeper’s got hold of one of the 
Beater’s bats.”
Harry spun around in midair. Sure enough, McLaggen, for reasons best known to himself, had 
pulled Peakes’s bat from him and appeared to be demonstrating how to hit a Bludger toward an 
oncoming Cadwallader.
“Will you give him back his bat and get back to the goal posts!” roared Harry, pelting toward 
McLaggen just as McLaggen took a ferocious swipe at the Bludger and mishit it.
A blinding, sickening pain… a flash of light… distant screams… and the sensation of falling 
down a long tunnel…
And the next thing Harry knew, he was lying in a remarkably warm and comfortable bed and 
looking up at a lamp that was throwing a circle of golden light onto a shadowy ceiling. He raised 
his head awkwardly. There on his left was a familiar-looking, freckly, red-haired person.
“Nice of you to drop in,” said Ron, grinning.
Harry blinked and looked around. Of course: He was in the hospital wing. The sky outside was 
indigo streaked with crimson. The match must have finished hours ago… as had any hope of 
cornering Malfoy. Harry’s head felt strangely heavy; he raised a hand and felt a stiff turban of 
bandages.
“What happened?”
“Cracked skull,” said Madam Pomfrey, bustling up and pushing him back against his pillows. 
“Nothing to worry about, I mended it at once, but I’m keeping you in overnight. You shouldn’t 
over exert yourself for a few hours.”

---

“I don’t want to stay here overnight,” said Harry angrily, sitting up and throwing back his covers. 
“I want to find McLaggen and kill him.”
“I’m afraid that would come under the heading of ‘overexertion,’” said Madam Pomfrey, 
pushing him firmly back onto the bed and raising her wand in a threatening manner. “You will 
stay here until I discharge you, Potter, or I shall call the headmaster.”
She bustled back into her office, and Harry sank back into his pillows, fuming.
“D’you know how much we lost by?” he asked Ron through clenched teeth.
“Well, yeah I do,” said Ron apologetically. “Final score was three hundred and twenty to sixty.”
“Brilliant,” said Harry savagely. “Really brilliant! When I get hold of McLaggen —”
“You don’t want to get hold of him, he’s the size of a troll,” said Ron reasonably. “Personally, I 
think there’s a lot to be said for hexing him with that toenail thing of the Prince’s. Anyway, the 
rest of the team might’ve dealt with him before you get out of here, they’re not happy…”
There was a note of badly suppressed glee in Rons voice; Harry could tell he was nothing short 
of thrilled that McLaggen had messed up so badly. Harry lay there, staring up at the patch of 
light on the ceiling, his recently mended skull not hurting, precisely, but feeling slightly tender 
underneath all the bandaging.
“I could hear the match commentary from here,” said Ron, his voice now shaking with laughter. 
“I hope Luna always commentates from now on… Loser’s Lurgy…”
But Harry was still too angry to see much humor in the situation, and after a while Ron’s snorts 
subsided.
“Ginny came in to visit while you were unconscious,” he said, after a long pause, and Harry’s 
imagination zoomed into overdrive, rapidly constructing a scene in which Ginny, weeping over 
his lifeless form, confessed her feelings of deep attraction to him while Ron gave them his 
blessing…”She reckons you only just arrived on time for the match. How come? You left here 
early enough.”
“Oh…” said Harry, as the scene in his mind’s eye imploded. “Yeah… well, I saw Malfoy 
sneaking off with a couple of girls who didn’t look like they wanted to be with him, and that’s 
the second time he’s made sure he isn’t down on the Quidditch pitch with the rest of the school; 
he skipped the last match too, remember?” Harry sighed. “Wish I’d followed him now, the match 
was such a fiasco…”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Ron sharply. “You couldn’t have missed a Quidditch match just to follow 
Malfoy, you’re the Captain!”

---

“I want to know what he’s up to,” said Harry. “And don’t tell me its all in my head, not after 
what I overheard between him and Snape —”
“I never said it was all in your head,” said Ron, hoisting himself up on an elbow in turn and 
frowning at Harry, “but there’s no rule saying only one person at a time can be plotting anything 
in this place! You’re getting a bit obsessed with Malfoy, Harry. I mean, thinking about missing a 
match just to follow him…”
“I want to catch him at it!” said Harry in frustration. “I mean, where’s he going when he 
disappears off the map?”
“I dunno… Hogsmeade?” suggested Ron, yawning.
“I’ve never seen him going along any of the secret passageway on the map. I thought they were 
being watched now anyway?”
“Well then, I dunno,” said Ron.
Silence fell between them. Harry stared up at the circle of lamp light above him, thinking…
If only he had Rufus Scrimgeour’s power, he would have been able to set a tail upon Malfoy, but 
unfortunately Harry did not have an office full of Aurors at his command… He thought 
fleetingly of trying to set something up with the D.A., but there again was the problem that 
people would be missed from lessons; most of them, after all, still had full schedules…
There was a low, rumbling snore from Ron’s bed. After a while Madam Pomfrey came out of her 
office, this time wearing a thick dressing gown. It was easiest to feign sleep; Harry rolled over 
onto his side and listened to all the curtains closing themselves as she waved her wand. The 
lamps dimmed, and she returned to her office; he heard the door click behind her and knew that 
she was off to bed.
This was, Harry reflected in the darkness, the third time that he had been brought to the hospital 
wing because of a Quidditch injury. Last time he had fallen off his broom due to the presence of 
dementors around the pitch, and the time before that, all the bones had been removed from his 
arm by the incurably inept Professor Lockhart… That had been his most painful injury by far… 
he remembered the agony of regrowing an armful of bones in one night, a discomfort not eased 
by the arrival of an unexpected visitor in the middle of the —
Harry sat bolt upright, his heart pounding, his bandage turban askew. He had the solution at last: 
There was a way to have Malfoy followed — how could he have forgotten, why hadn’t he 
thought of it before?
But the question was, how to call him? What did you do? Quietly, tentatively, Harry spoke into 
the darkness.
“Kreacher?”

---

There was a very loud crack, and the sounds of scuffling and squeaks filled the silent room. Ron 
awoke with a yelp. 
“What’s going —?”
Harry pointed his wand hastily at the door of Madam Pomfrey’s office and muttered, 
“Muffliato!” so that she would not come running. Then he scrambled to the end of his bed for a 
better look at what was going on.
Two house-elves were rolling around on the floor in the middle of the dormitory, one wearing a 
shrunken maroon jumper and several woolly hats, the other, a filthy old rag strung over his hips 
like a loincloth. Then there was another loud bang, and Peeves the Poltergeist appeared in midair 
above the wrestling elves.
“I was watching that, Potty!” he told Harry indignantly, pointing at the fight below, before letting 
out a loud cackle. “Look at the ickle creatures squabbling, bitey bitey, punchy punchy —”
“Kreacher will not insult Harry Potter in front of Dobby, no he won’t, or Dobby will shut 
Kreacher’s mouth for him!” cried Dobby in a high-pitched voice.
“— kicky, scratchy!” cried Peeves happily, now pelting bits of’ chalk at the elves to enrage them 
further. “Tweaky, pokey!”
“Kreacher will say what he likes about his master, oh yes, and what a master he is, filthy friend 
of Mudbloods, oh, what would poor Kreacher’s mistress say —?”
Exactly what Kreacher’s mistress would have said they did not find out, for at that moment 
Dobby sank his knobbly little fist into Kreacher’s mouth and knocked out half of his teeth. Harry 
and Ron both leapt out of their beds and wrenched the two elves apart, though they continued to 
try and kick and punch each other, egged on by Peeves, who swooped around the lamp 
squealing, “Stick your fingers up his nosey, draw his cork and pull his earsies —”
Harry aimed his wand at Peeves and said, “Langlock!” Peeves clutched at his throat, gulped, then 
swooped from the room making obscene gestures but unable to speak, owing to the fact that his 
tongue had just glued itself to the roof of his mouth.
“Nice one,” said Ron appreciatively, lifting Dobby into the air so that his flailing limbs no longer 
made contact with Kreacher. “That was another Prince hex, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” said Harry, twisting Kreacher’s wizened arm into a half nelson. “Right — I’m 
forbidding you to fight each other! Well, Kreacher, you’re forbidden to fight Dobby. Dobby, I 
know I’m not allowed to give you orders —” 
“Dobby is a free house-elf and he can obey anyone he likes and Dobby will do whatever Harry 
Potter wants him to do!” said Dobby, tears now streaming down his shriveled little face onto his 
jumper.

---

“Okay then,” said Harry, and he and Ron both released the elves, who fell to the floor but did not 
continue fighting.
“Master called me?” croaked Kreacher, sinking into a bow even as he gave Harry a look that 
plainly wished him a painful death.
“Yeah, I did,” said Harry, glancing toward Madam Pomfrey’s office door to check that the 
Muffliato spell was still working; there was no sign that she had heard any of the commotion. 
“I’ve got a job for you.”
“Kreacher will do whatever Master wants,” said Kreacher, sinking so low that his lips almost 
touched his gnarled toes, “because Kreacher has no choice, but Kreacher is ashamed to have 
such a master, yes —”
“Dobby will do it, Harry Potter!” squeaked Dobby, his tennis-ball-sized eyes still swimming in 
tears. “Dobby would be honored to help Harry Potter!”
“Come to think of it, it would be good to have both of you,” said Harry. “Okay then… I want 
you to tail Draco Malfoy.” 
Ignoring the look of mingled surprise and exasperation on Ron’s face, Harry went on, “I want to 
know where he’s going, who he’s meeting, and what he’s doing. I want you to follow him 
around the clock.”
“Yes, Harry Potter!” said Dobby at once, his great eyes shining with excitement. “And if Dobby 
does it wrong, Dobby will throw himself off the topmost tower, Harry Potter!”
“There won’t be any need for that,” said Harry hastily.
“Master wants me to follow the youngest of the Malfoys?” croaked Kreacher. “Master wants me 
to spy upon the pureblood great-nephew of my old mistress?”
“That’s the one,” said Harry, foreseeing a great danger and determining to prevent it 
immediately. “And you’re forbidden to tip him off, Kreacher, or to show him what you’re up to, 
or to talk to him at all, or to write him messages or… or to contact him in any way. Got it?”
He thought he could see Kreacher struggling to see a loophole in the instructions he had just 
been given and waited. After a moment or two, and to Harrys great satisfaction, Kreacher bowed 
deeply again and said, with bitter resentment, “Master thinks of everything, and Kreacher must 
obey him even though Kreacher would much rather be the servant of the Malfoy boy, oh yes…” 
“That’s settled, then,” said Harry. “I’ll want regular reports, but make sure I’m not surrounded 
by people when you turn up. Ron and Hermione are okay. And don’t tell anyone what you’re 
doing. Just stick to Malfoy like a couple of wart plasters.”